Scots urged to see the light in campaign for ‘dark sky parks’ November 17, 2008
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentSCOTLAND could become the first country in Europe to have internationally recognised “dark sky parks” where visitors could go to enjoy the full spectacle of the night sky.
A campaign to make people more aware of the importance of dark skies has been launched to mark the 400th anniversary in 2009 of the discoveries of the astronomer Galileo. Next year has also been designated the International Year of Astronomy.
Steve Owens, co-ordinator of the project in the UK, said he was hopeful parts of Scotland would become officially recognised by the International Dark Sky Association.
There are currently two internationally recognised dark sky parks in the United States and one in Canada, but as yet no area in Europe has been deemed perfect for dark sky gazing.
Mr Owens said he had been working with a number of organisations, including the country’s National Parks and Galloway Forest Park towards winning dark sky park status.
He said: “I certainly think Scotland has the best dark skies in Europe.”
The new initiative follows the success of Dark Sky Scotland, co-ordinated by the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, which drew more than 5,000 people to events across Scotland last year. The organisation is applying for funding to continue its work into 2009, including plans for “dark sky discovery sites” where city dwellers could learn to appreciate the night sky.
Read further at scotsman.com
Gazing at the Stars in Liverpool November 4, 2008
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentThe Image Group celebrates our love of astronomy with large outdoor photography exhibition documenting stars, planets and galaxies as far away as 13 billion light years.
The Image Group, Eccles-based large-format printer has designed and installed the stunning photographic exhibition to be seen by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide during UNESCO’s International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009).
The exhibition prototype sponsored by The Science Photo Library and Astronet successfully debuted in Liverpool’s Albert Dock in June. The exhibition featured 26 dibond panels measuring 3m x 80 cm showing images of galaxies, planets, stars, the Milky Way and as near as the Moon and as far away as 13 billion light years.
Liverpool was chosen to host the prototype display being the European Capital of Culture for 2008. The Albert Dock is the UK’s greatest collection of listed grade one buildings which means the Image Group had to adhere to stringent installation conditions.
For Image Group Dave Cousins said, “We had to ensure that there were no visible signs of our work. We used stainless steel sign banding secured with jubilee clips. Any excess was cut off afterwards. This meant that there was no need to drill and everything could be pre-made at the factory to minimise any public disruption.”
“From the moment we began putting the signs up the crowds started forming. There was tremendous interest and it’s exciting to think so many people throughout the world will see our work over the coming months.”
The aim of The IYA2009 is to celebrate astronomy’s contributions to society and culture, and to stimulate worldwide interest in astronomy. The exhibition called ‘From Earth to the Universe’ uses a mixture of images from professional astronomers using the biggest and best telescopes in the world. But there images from backyard astronomers with home telescopes and digital cameras also feature.
To reach the widest possible audience for this travelling exhibition, it will be displayed in non-traditional public venues such as parks and gardens, shopping malls, metro stations and airports in major cities across the world.
Read further at ajponline.co.uk
Cardiff folk will be seeing stars better October 27, 2008
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentCardiff University School of Physics and Astronomy has unveiled a new large optical telescope for use by students and the public.
The Cardiff Half-metre Newise Telescope has enormous capability for carrying out astronomy, even through the bright night skies of Cardiff.
Its size makes it equal to the largest of any UK university teaching telescope, and enables a level of image quality unparalleled by similar sized telescopes of more conventional designs, providing the School with a very powerful tool for the teaching of practical astronomy.
Professor Derek Ward-Thompson, observatory director, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to learn astronomy on what is essentially a research-class telescope.
“It will also be a marvellous resource for the general public. They will be able to come and look through a state of the art astronomical telescope. We very much hope that as many people as possible will take the chance to come along and look through the telescope on our open evenings throughout 2009.”
Read further at newswales.co.uk
Starry, starry night September 25, 2008
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentStarry-eyed expert and amateur astronomers in Pembrokeshire have told the Western Telegraph why they will be delighted to see street lighting cuts across the county.
The West Wales Astronomy Group, which meets every month to share experiences and use telescopes to seek out constellations and planets, has been campaigning to turn off street lights in Pembrokeshire for a while now in an effort to prevent light pollution.
Without complete darkness, it can be difficult to pick out even the brightest of stars in the night sky.
West Wales Astronomy Group Treasurer Paul Conti commented: “We used to meet at Trefach in the Preselis and sometimes we’d have weekend-long star camps. Pembrokeshire was known for its dark skies, especially up in the Preselis and we’ve had some amazing pictures there.
Read further at westerntelegraph.co.uk
Star-gazers gather for celestial party September 22, 2008
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentStar gazers from all over the country are expected to gather for an autumn equinox sky camp held at a north Norfolk holiday park which has an ever growing reputation for the clarity of its skies.
The event, at Kelling Heath Holiday Park, near Holt, will be the UK’s largest “star party” and will feature various forms of celestial entertainment.
Held on Saturday, September 27, it will attract more than 500 amateur astronomers and other intrigued members of the public to the 250-acre area of outstanding natural beauty.
The park is famed for being blessed with the some of the clearest and darkest skies in the country, allowing clear views of the planets and galaxies.
Richard Deighton from Loughton Astronomical Society, the star party organisers, said: “We choose Kelling Heath because it is one of the best sites in the UK for star gazing due to the very low levels of light pollution.
“This is thanks to there being few dense urban areas which omit a great deal of light and there is also very little industrial activity which produces atmospheric gases and clouds.”
Read further at epd24.co.uk
Exoplanet circles ‘normal star’ September 16, 2008
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentA planet has been pictured outside our Solar System which appears to be circling a star like our own Sun - a first in astronomy.
Most of the potential exoplanets imaged to date have been seen orbiting brown dwarfs, which are dim - making it easier to detect companion objects.
The new planet is huge, with a mass about eight times that of Jupiter.
The Canadian team that obtained the picture says the parent star is similar to the Sun but somewhat younger.
Three astronomers from the University of Toronto used the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii to take images of the young star 1RXS J160929.1-210524 and the planetary candidate.
The star and its companion lie about 500 light-years from Earth.
“This is the first time we have directly seen a planetary mass object in a likely orbit around a star like our Sun,” said lead author David Lafreniere.
“If we confirm that this object is indeed gravitationally tied to the star, it will be a major step forward.”
Read further at bbc.co.uk
Putting the fizz into physics September 15, 2008
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentThe former keyboard player with D:Ream is set to become the nation’s favourite scientist after talking us through the subatomic goings-on at Cern. Just don’t mention the end of the world…
In the transient media parlance, Gordon Ramsay is a ‘rock star’ chef, Dan Snow is a ‘rock star’ historian and Sarah Palin is now a ‘rock star’ politician. In the case of Dr Brian Cox, the soubriquet is not so much tired as justified. The scientist who leapt to ubiquity last week, enthusing over what he describes as mankind’s ‘biggest project since Apollo’, had a previous life in a Nineties band with regular gigs on Top of the Pops.
Cox played keyboards for D:Ream for the last time in May 1997. The occasion was New Labour’s election night party at the Royal Festival Hall, and the song was ‘Things Can Only Get Better’. In the years that followed, Britain got Blair and physics got its own ambitious, telegenic communicator in Cox. Today, as Blair’s heir is apparently sucked into a black hole, Cox is poised to slip the surly bonds of geekiness and become the god of small things.
A youthful 40, without a boffin whisker in sight, and articulating in the kind of regional accent that TV executives find ‘warm’, Cox became the acceptable face of physics last week when the world’s most powerful particle experiment was switched on at the Cern international science centre. In vast underground caverns near Geneva, the £5bn Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where Cox works on a particle detector called Atlas, has begun recreating the conditions present in the universe less than a billionth of a second after the big bang.
The event captured the public imagination, or at least the media’s, on the day with blanket coverage on Radio 4 and an image on Google’s homepage, which the internet company told Cox will have been seen by around half a billion people. To Cox himself fell the role of public oracle, conveying the strange beauty and violence of subatomic particles, and making unfathomably complex science accessible to the man in the street via BBC2’s Newsnight, Radio 4, Australia’s equivalent of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and countless other media.
He reeled off facts and figures of undeniable wow factor: the accelerator’s circumference of 27 kilometres, buried about 100 metres underground; the temperature inside the tube, -271C, colder than space, making it the biggest fridge in the world; a proton beam whizzing around one way - 11,000 times a second, with as much energy as an aircraft carrier going at 30mph - and another proton beam whizzing around the other way; the beams smashing together up to 600 million times a second.
Among the aims of the biggest experiment of all time: to isolate the elusive Higgs boson, or ‘God particle’, which gives the matter in the universe its mass. As Cox put it, with his gift for user-friendly terms, that really means: why is this table solid?
Read further at guardian.co.uk
Scots countdown to space tourism September 9, 2008
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentThe night sky above Scotland could become as important to tourism as its landscape by day, according to experts on space and tourism.
Science business boss Maarten de Vries said Scotland was one of a declining number of countries with large areas free of light pollution.
He also predicted a boom if Virgin Galactic flights launch from Moray.
The success of stargazing project “Dark Sky Scotland”, meanwhile, could see it being rolled out across the UK.
Mr de Vries, who runs Black Isle-based Going Nova - a business promoting science and technology - said Scotland has large areas unaffected by pollution from artificial lighting.
He said: “There is certainly an opportunity to come here because of our pristine skies.
“There are still places in South America, the States and Spain where astronomers go to, but there are fewer places because of light pollution encroaching from cities.
“The night sky could be as important for tourism as Scotland’s landscape.”
Scott Armstrong, VisitScotland’s regional director, agreed Scotland’s “dark skies” were a boon.
He said: “The Highlands and other areas of Scotland are perfect for stargazers.
“There are vast areas with dark skies and limited lighting which makes Scotland a must visit destination, offering a unique experience to our visitors.”
Mr de Vries, who also leads the campaign Spaceport Scotland, said the potential of Virgin Galactic launching flights to more than 60 miles above the Earth from a site in Scotland had huge implications for tourism.
He said: “I believe a spaceport in Moray would be the most significant thing to happen in the area since the Romans.”
Read further at bbc.co.uk
The sky’s the limit for astronomer September 8, 2008
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentHe’s spent more than 20 years watching the skies, but these days you’re just as likely to see Mark Thompson zooming through them.
That’s because the chairman of Norwich Astronomical Society is edging a tiny bit closer to the galaxies he loves, by training to become a pilot, as DAN GRIMMER discovered.
It was the awe-inspiring moment when Mark Thompson stared at Saturn through a telescope on the outskirts of Norwich that he fell head over heels with all things astronomical.
He was about 10-years-old at the time when his father first took him to the observatory at Colney where the Norwich Astronomical Society meets - now he’s the group’s chairman.
He said: “I hadn’t had any interest in astronomy before that and my dad had more of an interest than me. But when I saw the rings and moons of Saturn it was amazing.
“That was something that just stayed with me and started a lifetime of me spending far too much money to pursue a hobby that I loved.”
The former Thorpe St Andrew School pupil devoured all the books about space and was soon being driven to society meetings by his parents - who sat in the car outside while he lost himself in the world of stars, distant galaxies, planets and comets.
Read further at eveningnews24.co.uk
Sir Patrick special guest at astronomy festival
Posted by admin in : UK Astronomy News , add a commentASTRONOMERS and stargazers from all over the country will descend on Herstmonceux Observatory this weekend for the Herstmonceux Astronomy Festival.
The festival will be a celebration of all things astronomical with a series of lectures by astronomers and scientists.
Topics will range from the history of astronomy to the science behind the Hubble space telescope’s most iconic images.
The highlight will be a talk on Sunday (September 7) at 1pm from legendary broadcaster and writer Sir Patrick Moore on his exploits observing the moon.
Sir Patrick, now 85 and still living at his home in Selsey, West Sussex, told the Gazette he was looking forward to the festival.
He said, “It should be a great success. I’m most looking forward to meeting old friends.”
Read further at eastbourneherald.co.uk